Tesla Evolution Box Set

by Mark Lingane

  The truck skidded to a halt beside them, giving them temporary protection from the incoming fire. They scrambled into the cab. The garrison soldiers ran after the lurching truck, firing. Memphis floored the accelerator.

  “Jumping up into that chopper was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said, brushing the hair out of her eyes.

  “You haven’t seen some of the things I’ve done in the past.”

  “Anyway, it was very brave.” she gave him a smile. “But very stupid. Don’t forget that bit.”

  Niels glanced into the back of the truck. “All the gear’s still there,” he said.

  “Pass me my pack,” Memphis said.

  Niels ran his hands around the metal sheet until the security door latch clicked and swung open into the rear of the truck.

  “Where to now?” Sebastian said.

  “Only one place left for us, the east.”

  They both stared out the windshield at the concrete monstrosity in front of them. The Great Wall stood ten feet tall, and disappeared into the north and south horizons. It widened to twenty feet at the gate, which sat deep within the entrance to the square tunnel. Barbed wire curled along the top of the gray barrier, and soldiers were patrolling behind it.

  “Niels, I’m going to need my pack,” she called out. He reappeared and slid the pack down by her feet.

  “Anyone got a plan?” Sebastian said.

  Ahead they could see the solid steel of Springboard Springs Gate in front of the tunnel leading through the wall. Soldiers on both sides shot from guard points on top of the wall. Bullets sparked as they glanced off the thick metal of the truck. Memphis slammed on the brakes and the truck came to a stuttering halt.

  Several western soldiers stepped in front of the truck, with guns raised.

  “What are you stopping for? It’s only a few soldiers.” Sebastian reached for his sword and opened the passenger door.

  “You can’t go around hitting people just to get your way. One day you’ll meet someone who can hit you harder.” She glanced over his huge physique. “Probably. Didn’t the Peacemaker teach you that? He wielded more power with his mouth than anything else. You need to think about things before rushing in and using force.”

  “But that’s all I’ve known.”

  “Maybe you should adapt, because it’s not these guys I’m worried about.” She pointed ahead.

  Two soldiers appeared in front of the gates carrying grenade launchers. She revved the engine and reached down into her pack.

  The first group of soldiers stood in a semi-circle facing the front of the truck. They moved uneasily, well aware of the danger in front of them and behind them. There was a moment of silence then the delicate sound of metal bouncing along a hard surface as Memphis dropped one of her explosives. The large canister rolled out from underneath the truck and rolled to their feet. The leader shouted and the soldiers ran for cover as the grenade exploded, flattening them.

  Memphis slammed her foot down and the truck charged forward. The soldiers with grenade launchers ran to the side and fired. They missed narrowly, and the road behind them exploded. The force of the explosion lifted up the rear of the truck, driving the front down into the road. The hood crumpled, and steam hissed out of the engine. The vehicle bounced forward before the weight of the rear was reclaimed by gravity, and it came crashing down.

  Again, Memphis urged the battered vehicle forward, as fast as she could. The truck hit the gates. The gates buckled, but held. Memphis backed up and tried again. The gates bent further, but remained closed. Memphis backed up for a third attempt. The dials in the cab were bouncing in the red, and steam poured from under the dash, fogging up the windscreen. She slammed it into gear and crashed forward as more grenades were launched at them.

  The first hit the rear corner of the truck, twisting it into the side of the gates, but pushing it out of the way of the second grenade, which sailed past them and blew open the gate. The truck smashed off the wall, bouncing back into what remained of the gates and cracking them off their hinges.

  Flames licked around the edges of the hood. The engine exploded and flames engulfed the front of the truck as they barreled through the tunnel and into eastern territory.

  68

  THE GUARDS ON the eastern side of the wall opened fire on the retreating truck, which lurched erratically over the uneven terrain.

  Sebastian looked at Memphis. “Didn’t you just rush in and use force?”

  “Yeah.” She gave him a stern look. “But I thought about it first.”

  “For about one millionth of a second.”

  “Oh, not that long. You don’t want to dwell on things.” She smiled and ruffled his hair, then blew him a kiss.

  Sebastian shook his head and looked in what remained of the wing mirror. Its mottled surface was scratched and pitted by their failed attempts to escape. His face was scrunched up with his thought processes. “They didn’t put up much of a fight to stop us.”

  “They fired grenades at us,” Memphis said.

  “Sort of. But I’ve faced lots of people who haven’t wanted to let me pass, and it can be a lot tougher than that.”

  “What are you saying? They wanted us to get through? Why?”

  Niels watched the Great Wall diminishing behind them. He saw several guards running toward vehicles parked to one side of the ruined gates. “There’s a big hole in the back of the truck. And it’s on fire.”

  The engine spluttered to a halt. They all clambered out of the truck and looked back at their short but eventful journey from the western side of the wall.

  “Won’t the choppers follow us?” Sebastian said.

  Memphis shook her head as she quickly started to unload their gear. “No one from the west would dare cross the border.”

  Niels squinted back at the destruction. “Something’s wrong.” He disappeared into the smoking rear of the truck and returned with a set of binoculars. He raised them to his eyes and looked back at the wall.

  “I see what you mean about the Great Wall not actually being that great,” Sebastian said. “It wouldn’t take many people to bring it down.”

  “Yes,” Memphis said, “but there are only three of us.”

  “The wall was locked from the east side. No one’s getting through from the west.”

  “Why would the Peacemaker stop people going through to the east? Surely there are big profits to be made.”

  “It’s not the Peacemaker, it’s the Master. He’s locking in everyone on the western side. So what’s dangerous in the west?”

  “The infected,” Sebastian said. “He’s locking everyone in with the infected. The west just used us to break down the gate so they could say it wasn’t them.”

  “That’s politics for you.”

  Sebastian pointed at a distant figure moving oddly. “Is that someone standing on the wall?”

  Memphis and Niels both sighed.

  “Is he still there?” Niels said. He lifted the binoculars again and let out a groan. “It’s him.”

  “Who?”

  “Hoofy,” Memphis said. “He stands up there doing his bad dancing, and singing that stupid ‘Searching for Sovereignty’ song. He’s been doing it for years.”

  “Someone should shoot him and put us all out of our misery,” Niels said.

  “That’s a bit mean,” Sebastian said.

  “You haven’t heard him.”

  They winched Veronica and the steambike out of the smoldering truck.

  Sebastian looked back. A small team had left the gate and was heading in their direction. He pointed at the approaching dust cloud. “So, who’s chasing us now?”

  “They probably want to see if we’re infected,” Niels said.

  “I don’t think they’ll be very friendly,” Memphis said. “Not after we just blew a hole in their wall.”

  They hurriedly collected up their possessions and followed the road down into the eastern plains. The land was dead. An impossible stretch of flat, gray terrain
stretched in front of them toward an infinite horizon. Nothing lived. The headwinds howled against them, severely reducing their speed. They drove on through the miles, passing through remnants of towns that provided the only change in the monotonous landscape. As time wound on, Sebastian began to feel a dull but incessant pain in his head. It continued to intensify until his eye began to twitch. At the next town, he signaled for Niels to stop.

  Sebastian rolled to a halt behind a half-wall made of eroded bricks. He glanced over the wall. On the sheltered side was an old wooden picture frame. The picture inside of it had been bleached white. He looked ahead into the eternal gray; gray land and gray sky, and barely a point where you could tell them apart.

  He grabbed his head and clenched his eyes shut. He dropped to the ground and rocked back and forth.

  Memphis sat down next to him and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  “My head. It’s like something’s stabbing into it.”

  “This is radioactive land,” Niels said. “It could be affecting you.”

  “It’s easing. Or I’m getting used to it.” He grimaced as he rubbed his temples. Eventually he stood up, but his face was pale.

  “We’re in the east now,” Niels said. “Things are different here. It’s a dangerous land.”

  “How can it be dangerous?” Sebastian said. “There’s no one here.”

  “You’d be surprised where people can survive,” Niels said. “Can you go on? We’re on the death plains, not generally a safe place. We’ve already been here too long.”

  Sebastian squinted as he glanced around the area. There was not a single place anyone could survive. The constant throbbing in his head numbed his senses. He shrugged and took a frugal sip of water, which hurt to swallow. “Let’s do it.”

  They pulled back onto the gray road.

  The dust blew over them as they churned away at the never-ending miles, and the sun toiled above until it became a hint of a sunset winking against the gray sky. As the dark descended around them, Niels pulled over into the windblown fragments of a clutch of houses. The spire from an old church towered above them, the only recognizable symbol they’d seen all day.

  “Niels, are we safe here?” Memphis said.

  Niels glanced around. “I doubt it. But we’re a lot safer here than driving through the night. That would be suicide. It’s not just the terrain—we’d also get the freight runners, the big road trains moving through the night. Even if they saw us in time, they wouldn’t stop. There’s also outlaw packs looking for lost travelers or gaterunners.”

  “How many nights do we have to get through?” Sebastian said.

  “Only two, as long as nothing goes wrong,” Niels said.

  Memphis gave him a lop-sided smile. “Maybe we’ll be lucky.”

  Sebastian dismounted from the bike and sagged to his knees. His cape fluttered out behind him as his head fell forward, silhouetted against the dark horizon. The wind had picked up, and the dust was forming into a sandstorm. Sebastian kept his goggles on, and they all wrapped cloths around their faces.

  Daylight suddenly vanished, leaving behind an eerie glow over the land. Their lights flickered and cut through the dancing dust and sand.

  “Our tents aren’t going to survive ten minutes out here,” Memphis shouted above the roaring wind. She pointed to the church wall. “We should get behind that.”

  Niels nodded and moved Veronica in behind the wall, finding a small pond of stillness in the buffeting winds. He pressed a button on Veronica’s dash. The roof slowly opened and a large tent folded out, clicking into place on the side of the car. They all entered the small shelter.

  “I thought it would be bigger than this,” Sebastian said.

  “How could it be?” Niels said. “There’s only so much material that could fit inside Veronica, and it was designed as a one-person tent.”

  “It’ll be cozy with all three of us,” Memphis said. She wrapped her arm around Sebastian’s waist, there not being much space for it to be anywhere else.

  They sat in a circle around the small lantern with their knees touching, eating the provisions supplied by Niels, as the wind howled and the tent walls shook unrelentingly.

  Sebastian didn’t know what time it was when the baying started. The noise had prodded him awake, but the other two slept on. An answering call echoed from the opposite side, and he thought he heard a scrape immediately outside the tent. He put on his goggles and wrapped the cloth around his face, slowly unclipped the flap, picked up his sword, and stepped out into the night. The clips reattached as the tent flap folded back down.

  The wind roared, nearly knocking him over. He stepped next to the church wall for a respite from the weather. The place was horrific, devoid of anything of value and meaning. No life. No future. The moon was hidden above the sandstorm, and the faint greenish glow from the land barely outlined the shadows.

  This is a diseased land, he thought. What must it do to the people?

  He stood with his back against the wall, listening. He heard another howl, this time longer and tinged with a hint of sorrow. He squinted out into the horizon. He saw what looked like a tiny pinpoint of light. He shrugged. Out here it could just be a scratch on his goggles.

  He felt the sand move under his feet. He glanced down. Directly to his right, the sand was falling away, the green glow sliding into the hole like slime. As he watched it, to his horror several thick worms rose out of the ground.

  Five of them.

  Attached.

  To a hand.

  Then an arm.

  Slowly, folding itself out of the dust and sand, a body rose. A man of the sand. A sandman. There was another distant howl, and the body froze, staring out in the direction of the tiny point of light.

  Sebastian stood still and watched. The person wore a mask, hiding their gender, and a long, dark purple, nearly black, robe was tied around their waist. The color of the fabric hurt his eyes, making it nearly impossible to focus on the figure.

  The sandman picked up an old tree branch and a loose brick from the church wall, and then moved around the car, examining it closely. There was movement on the left. Another body slowly rose out of the ground.

  Sebastian hoped he wasn’t standing on some kind of sandman nest.

  The figures moved deceptively quickly in the poor light. Sebastian crept up behind the first sandman as it approached the tent. He reached out to grab its shoulder, but when he brought his hand down, there was nothing there. His hand fell through the image of the sandman.

  The branch sliced around and stung him on the back of his legs. As he swayed out of the way, the brick swung in and in and clipped him on the temple. Multiple stings rained over his body, driving him into a ball of pain, paralyzing his movements. Wherever he looked, he couldn’t see anything other than a hint of purple robes. He swung around, searching for the elusive figures in the swirling sands; they danced in front of his eyes like ghosts.

  He caught one of the sandmen in his peripheral vision, twisted to face it, and struck out. It vanished before his eyes. There was nothing but dust falling to the ground.

  He blinked in disbelief. This isn’t possible, he thought. People don’t just turn to dust when you run a sword through them. What was he missing?

  Another blow from a heavy branch cracked across his back. He crashed to the ground. Another blow came down on him. He caught the movement and managed to raise his arm in time to deflect the blow. His arm burned with the pain. He still could not see the figure that was attacking him. A gust of wind scooped up several handfuls of sand and flicked it up into the air; it fell down onto the body of the attacking sandman. He shook his head. It had almost seemed deliberate.

  The faint glow from the sand outlined the sandman’s body. Sebastian swung his sword around, slicing into his attacker’s leg. He jumped up and brought the sword down on the outlined figure. The scream was immediately lost in the wind.

  The two figures attacked him simultaneously w
ith the heavy branches. He parried as effectively as he could in the near-pitch black. He swung randomly until he was able to crouch down, grab some of the sand, and throw it in the air. The falling sand outlined an arm. He charged after the person, swinging into where he hoped the body was. He missed.

  A rock bounced off his shoulder, narrowly missing his head. He swung around. He could no longer see the camp. There was another long howl, louder now. He looked out into the black night. The pinpoint of light had grown, and was moving steadily. There was another howl, accompanied by a faint roaring. The light grew larger, the roaring grew louder, and another branch cracked into the back of his head.

  He collapsed to the ground, and the two sandmen flailed at him. The blows were unrelenting. He shouted as he fought back, swinging wildly, but his mouth filled with sand, silencing his voice. He swung in low and felt his sword connect with something. He scooped up another handful of sand and threw it. It caught the edges of the body and he drove his sword home. The barely visible body went limp and there was a distant scream.

  One left. Where was it? In the wind, the scream could have come from anywhere.

  The light was now the size of an insect, vibrating intensely as it approached. The roar had become the distinctive sound of a road train’s thunder.

  He scanned around, looking for any sign of the final sandman. Staggering forward, he stumbled onto the roadway, its hard surface providing some relief from the sucking sands of the plains. Then someone was on his back, pushing him to the ground. His sword fell from his hand and skidded along the bitumen. The sandman grabbed his head and tried to smash it into the road. He braced against the surprising strength.

  And then the light of the road train was upon them, approaching at a frightening pace, heading directly toward them.

  Sebastian rolled to one side, taking the sandman with him. The two grappled on the roadway, and Sebastian punched and kicked with everything he had. He tried to grab the sandman’s neck, but its constant writhing made it impossible. He kicked up, catching the inside of the sandman’s leg and forcing it off him. He jumped to his feet and tried to grab his attacker, but wherever he grabbed the figure had already moved.